This past weekend, Ubisoft (who mentioned ahead of time that they weren't going to address their company culture) gave us another "not-E3-but-totally-probably-E3" presentation. It was...technically a presentation.

In this endless summer of marketing, publishers are scrambling to put together 45-minute-to-an-hour streams that seemingly have nothing to say beyond "here's a trailer coming to YouTube," and Ubisoft Forward was perhaps the epitome of that scrappy philosophy. If you weren't impressed though Ubisoft says there's more to come, as company CEO Yves Guillemot noted that there will be another Ubisoft Forward this year that will reveal even more info.

Guillemot declined to elaborate on when that might happen, so "please look forward to it," as they say.

Blizzard is making a push with World of Warcraft controller support for upcoming expansion Shadowlands. But, as executive producer John Hight explained to me, this isn't about fitting the game on a PlayStation or Xbox pad. It's about broadening input options for players with disabilities.

"So what we're doing," John Hight told me, "is enabling a lot of the things required for our add-on community to build add-ons for controller support. And it isn't just controllers: we're looking at a number of different devices. But our focus was not to try and make WoW feel like a console game but rather for players with disabilities to have more accessible input devices.

"The first step for us was, 'Hey, there's a lot of signals these controllers - or these devices - use that people can't get at easily so let's first enable that,' and we're trying to work closely with some add-on builders to let them know it's coming. We feel like what will happen is, as these devices come out - hopefully we're going to see even more innovative devices so everybody can participate, not just in WoW but in the online community in general - that we've provided the sufficient hooks for them to be able to integrate with the game."

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[Update: The NES LEGO set has been confirmed, with the final price set at $229.99 and the kit clocking in at 2646 pieces. It is indeed coming on August 1: you can find the official landing page for it here and the trailer below.]

If LEGO is making a nostalgia grab, you best believe it's doing it right. LEGO's elaborate scenarios always have those extra touches to make them feel complete. And a Nintendo Entertainment System all by its lonesome is kind of useless.

As the next set in the partnership between Nintendo and LEGO, the two companies are looking toward iconic hardware rather than more gaming franchises. A LEGO NES set is on the horizon, which will have builders assembling both the NES and a CRT television.

If you’re looking to take advantage of AMD’s free Assassin’s Creed Valhalla bundle with select Ryzen processors at the moment, then there are some great [cms-block] happening over at Newegg right now as part of their Fantastech sale (yes, I just did a big shudder as well). The best deal of the bunch is definitely the Ryzen 7 3700X, which can now be had for a new low of just $260, which is the cheapest price I’ve seen for this octa-core CPU ever since it launched last year.

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SINoALICE players can now obtain Little Mermaid Gunner for free with the addition of the new story chapter, Book of Misery.

The post Little Mermaid Gunner is Now Free to Obtain With the Addition of a New Story Chapter in SINoALICE appeared first on Siliconera.

Blizzard is getting ready to launch a new Overwatch music collection with "Cities and Countries" album, and who better to usher in that initiative than Sigma: the musically inclined hero.

Billed as a soundtrack "featuring the themes from Overwatch maps and missions," it'll be available to both purchase and stream. Given that the score is one of the best parts of the game, I wholeheartedly approve. Another facet of the promotion involves something "tangible" in-game as well: the Sigma Maestro Challenge, which kicks off tomorrow.

Although details on the event are scarce, it'll probably be in line with past micro-events, with a new Sigma skin (above) as a reward at the end of the tunnel. Although a lot of people are simply waiting for Overwatch 2, these kinds of mini thematic things pull me back in from time to time (mostly on Switch, where I can kick it with a few games casually in bed).

Overwatch [Twitter]

Plushie Grookey | $11 | Amazon
Plushie Pichu | $13 | Amazon

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Square Enix just put out a new trailer for Nier Re[in]carnation, the upcoming Nier mobile game, and lovely it looks indeed.

The video shows off a gorgeous atmosphere, plenty of mysterious exploration and of course Nier's trademark enveloping music. We see the combat for the first, too, and it looks like pretty standard party-based hack and slash. It could be turn-based, with touch icons for various abilities. There are waves of enemies (we see strange black monsters) to defeat in combat encounters.

The unnamed protagonist is a girl who wakes up in a place that includes various environments dubbed "cages". As she explores, she is guided by a little ghost called "Mama".

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During yesterday's Ubisoft Forward presentation, fans of the Splinter Cell franchise once again walked away empty-handed. The only reference made to the long-dormant stealth series was the appearance of its protagonist, Sam Fisher, in a new trailer for upcoming mobile title Tom Clancy's Elite Squad.

Revealed during Ubisoft's E3 2019 press conference, Elite Squad is a tactical RPG which utilises a roster of stars pulled from various Ubisoft franchises. Alongside Mr. Fisher, Elite Squad boasts stars such as The Division's Megan, Ghost Recon's Nomad and Weaver, and Rainbow Six Siege's Montagne and Caveira. In the new trailer, some of these trigger-happy maniacs were seen rescuing - of all people - El Sueno, antagonist of Ghost Recon: Wildlands. Sueno is a real bad dude, so Sam better know what he's doing.

Every so often Nintendo decides it's time to move over into the new era: as evidenced by their hella-late Switch Online service. This week it's an Instagram account: which your kid would totally make fun of you for just joining in 2020 (God mom it's all about TikTok now). 

Nintendo done did it last night, posting a cute little slideshow montage of Twiggy the bird. The fact that this simple post caught on fire instantly is proof positive of how insatiable Nintendo fans are for anything content-related, as it blew up the official account to 100,000+-ish followers in just eight hours.

While New Horizons is the hotness right now, the account is titled "Animal Crossing Official," so expect it to live on for a while, possibly into the next iteration: or even cover previous entries. Follow it if you're into the series!

People in Fallout 76 are decent enough, in my experience. I forget whether I’ve related my first encounter with another player, where I accidentally blundered into their camp, then backed away in the panicky assumption that they’d attack me, only for them to instead drop a gift bag with a level-appropriate hunting rifle and some ammunition in it. I still have that rifle.

Most people I’ve met were similarly friendly, or at least indifferent. But then there was Overprotective Thumbs Up Statue Power Armour Hermit. They were no fun at all.

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The Hollywood newshounds over at Deadline are reporting that the Sony's big-screen adaptation of Capcom's blockbuster franchise Monster Hunter has fallen afoul of expected circumstances, and has had its release date pushed back to spring 2021.

Monster Hunter was originally scheduled for release on September 4, but production and distribution delays caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic - not to mention the ongoing shutdown of cinemas worldwide - has led Sony to postpone the film's launch. Monster Hunter joins a long list of films, including 007 adventure No Time to Die, Marvel's Black Widow, and horror sequel Halloween Kills, to have its release pushed way back from the original due date.

Monster Hunter, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, will tell the story of Lt. Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her squad of spec-ops soldiers, who are thrust into an alternate universe filled with giant beasts, strange locations, and bizarre weaponry. Martial-arts master Tony Jaa also stars as a denizen of this weird world, who teaches Artemis the way of the hunter.

Monster Hunter will now launch in theatres April 23, 2021.

Milla Jovovich fantasy actioner Monster Hunter moves to 2021 [Deadline]

Next year, a one-to-one scale Freedom Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam Seed will be erected in Shanghai. This is the first official life-sized Gundam to be built outside Japan.

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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla finally has a release date and Ubisoft even showed off some actual gameplay! You can now see just how grim the dark ages were in 9th centry England, from viking sieges of Saxon castles to fighting witches in dingy swamps.

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If you’re looking to upgrade your PC with a new gaming CPU at the moment, then you’re in the right place, as we’ve rounded up all of the cheapest CPU deals from the last seven days. Whether you’re looking to build a new budget PC or a super-powered mega rig, you’ll find all the best prices for today’s [cms-block]s below so you can see how they compare against one another. From the best Intel CPU deals to the best AMD Ryzen CPU deals, these are the best CPU deals around right now.

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Developer GungHo Online Entertainment has announced that its free-to-play arena-shooter Ninjala has already surpassed a whopping three million downloads since its launch on Nintendo Switch just three weeks ago.

At this point the "Smash Invitations," which are merely letters with the Super Smash Bros. seal on them to signify that a character has been "invited" to serve as paid DLC, are ubiquitous with the Nintendo brand.

The publisher even emblazoned the letter-logo on gift cards back when the first Fighters (Season) Pass was being peddled, and a lot of arts and crafts-gifted folks have taken to making their own sets. Now you don't have to do any work: so long as you have a Japanese My Nintendo account and 400 Platinum ready to go.

Announced on the official Japanese Smash Bros. account, the letter set is now a "new My Nintendo gift," which you can purchase for 400 Platinum Points. According to Nintendo the rush to grab them will begin on July 15 in the region, which will no doubt crash the website at some point.

As a note, the set comes with envelopes, seals and letterhead so you can send a real invitation to people if you want. If you have a friend in Japan, ask them to grab one for you! Between this and the European physical gifts recently, the US arm of My Nintendo is looking really glum right now.

Smash Bros. JP [Twitter]

Square Enix has released a new trailer for its upcoming mobile title NieR Re[in]carnation, the latest entry in its haunting and ethereal series of man, monsters, and machines.

The hair-raising trailer offers a glimpse of the new adventure, as mysterious protagonist "The Girl in White" is guided through an intimidating and lonely world by a cute, ghostly presence known only as "Mama." As our young hero makes her way through "The Cage," she will uncover the truth about Mama, her own identity, and the mysterious "Dark Monster" that plagues her footsteps.

I really like Project Winter, at least in theory. It’s a classic hidden role multiplayer affair, where you’re ostensibly Doing A Survival: there’s a bunch of you stuck somewhere arctic, trying not to freeze or starve in a log cabin while also accomplishing tasks like repairing radio transmitters, with the eventual aim of summoning an escape helicopter.

But as Matt put it in a recent post, “really it’s about luring your friends into the wilderness so you can murder them“. Because of course, not all of your group of survivors are goodies. One or two of you, depending on how many are playing, will be secretly designated as gits, and will spend the whole game trying to ruin everyone elses’ chances of rescue.

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Today Square Enix released a brand new trailer and images of the upcoming mobile game NieR Re[in]carnation.

The trailer provides an extensive look at the game, showing more of what we can expect, including what appears to be actual gameplay.

The gameplay itself is divided between exploring the place called “Cage,” playable memories that have a different visual style, and combat. 

The images include three screenshots portraying environments of the Cage, and three main characters designed by acclaimed artist Akihiko Yoshida (whom you may know for his work on Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIV, NieR Automata, and many more games), on top of the key artwork.

The protagonist is a girl who wakes up in a strange place named “cage” surrounded by majestic buildings. Guided by the strange ghost-like creature named “Mama” she explores the large stone hallways to recover what she has lost and atone for her sins. 

We also get to see the “Black Monster,” a strange creature wearing armor that wanders the Cage. It seems to have an unknown purpose.

You can check all the assets out below.  

Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku’s reader-run community: Doctorkev’s Spring 2020 Anime Postmortem • Future Reviews: Razer Viper Mini • TAY Retro: Sega Master System - Master System Plus [TV Commercial, UK]

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Was Ubisoft Forward Worth Watching or Was It a Step Back? Read More »

Bandai Namco Shanghai revealed that Shanghai is getting a life-size statue of Freedom Gundam, which will open in 2021.

The post Shanghai Will Get a Full-Scale Gundam Statue of Its Own appeared first on Siliconera.

A fair few games in recent E3 showcases were conspicuously absent from today’s Ubisoft Forward stream: no Beyond Good & Evil 2, no Rainbow Six Quarantine, no Gods & Monsters, no Roller Champions, no Skull & Bones. And yet they found time to announce Far Cry 6. Given that they’ve all been delayed for extra work before, maybe they’re pushed far enough into the future for Ubisoft to wind down the hype machine. Today the company confirmed they are planning another Ubisoft Forward event with more games, so maybe then for some of them?

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Compile Heart’s Hyperdimension Neptunia series is about to get two new figures straight from Megadimension Neptunia VII.

Vertex made two figures portraying Next Purple (the evolution of the goddess form of Neptune herself) and Next White (Blanc’s evolution) available for pre-order.

You can find them on Ami Ami for 29,500 yen each, which roughly translates into $276. They’re high-end figures in 1/7 scale, so the price tag isn’t entirely surprising.

Next Purple will come in December 2020, while Next White will take longer, releasing in March 2021.

The former’s prototype is sculpted by M.I.C., while the latter comes from the crafty hands of Kouichi Masumiya. Both measure 380mm in height, making the pretty large figures.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in Megadimension Neptunia VII, a Nintendo Switch version will be released in the west soon (within the summer). The game is also available for PS4 and PC.

You can check out what both figures look like in the gallery below.

This week’s import releases include a new Paper Mario and another Code: Realize fan disc. #url#

The post This Week In Imports: Paper Mario: The Origami King Enters the Fold appeared first on Siliconera.

Update: Anyone with an Ubi account can now sign up for a free copy over here.

Ubisoft’s offer of Watch Dogs 2 for free if you watched today’s Ubisoft Forward stream today was meant to be a tempting little sweetener, but things broke. The servers seemingly overloaded, meaning that not only were many unable to sign into their Ubi accounts and become eligible for the giveaway, some people are complaining all the failed attempts got their accounts automatically disabled. Welp. Sounds like it’ll take some fixing, but Ubisoft have at least said people who couldn’t log in will get the freebie.

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After some leaks earlier this week, Far Cry 6 got a proper reveal during today’s Ubisoft Forward event. It stars Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, The Mandalorian) as the main villain, Anton, who is the ruthless dictator of a fictional small-island country heavily inspired by Cuba.

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Get ready for your Death Stranding adventures with Sam by preloading the PC copy immediately.

The post Death Stranding PC Preloading Has Begun appeared first on Siliconera.

Following the new reveal at Ubisoft Connect, the publisher released a new press kit with plenty of screenshots and artwork of Watch Dogs Legion.

Most of the art focuses on some of the colorful characters that we’ll be able to recruit in our pocket revolution, while the screenshots show them in action.

You can check them all out in the gallery below.

Ubisoft’s free-to-play battle royale FPS Hyper Scape today launched into open beta, after a short closed beta with invitations handed out on Twitch. As the genre goes, 100 players are running around a big map looting and shooting. Hyper Scape is pretty zippy as battle royales go, mind, with players bouncing from streets to rooftops and zipping about with special abilities. If you were curious but didn’t want to watch Twitch in the hope of scooping a key, here you go.

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Following the official reveal at Ubisoft Connect, the publisher released a new press kit with plenty of screenshots and artwork of Far Cry 6.

Besides a few stills from the trailer, we get to take a look at the first gameplay screenshots showing flamethrowers, car chases (against tanks), planes, and more.

You can check them out below.

Following the gameplay reveal at Ubisoft Connect, the publisher released a new press kit with plenty of screenshots and artwork of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.

The screenshots showcase various scenes of the game, while the art provides another look at some of its characters, including the male and female version of the protagonist Eivor and king Aelfred the Great.

You can check them all out below. 

Far Cry 6 and its standard, Gold, Ultimate, and Collector's Editions will all arrive on current and next-gen platforms on February 18, 2021.

The post Far Cry 6 Will Arrive February 18, 2021, Collector’s Edition Includes a Fake Flamethrower appeared first on Siliconera.

Today's the day we (officially) saw Assassin's Creed Valhalla gameplay for the first time - not counting those leaks last week.

Ubisoft showed a decent look during its Ubisoft Forward presentation, and then even more in a post-show deep dive. Eurogamer has also been playing a build of the game ourselves - you can watch that and hear Zoe's thoughts below.

This section shows the climactic fort assault spotted in those leaks, but also some more peaceful gameplay exploring East Anglia and attending a wedding between tribes. Well, it starts peaceful, anyway.

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Ah, Sam Fisher. What does Ubisoft have planned for the stealth hero next? A starring role in a new mobile game, it seems.

During the Ubisoft Forward event tonight, the company showed a new trailer for Tom Clancy's Elite Squad, a kind of Tom Clancy all-stars (I know) action RPG for mobile devices drenched in a Fortnite-style graphics style.

Sam Fisher is in the trailer, complete with iconic night vision goggles, alongside characters from the likes of Rainbow Six (Montagne and Caveira), Ghost Recon (El Sueño from Wildlands), and The Division. There are five versus five battles in a campaign mode as well as competitive multiplayer. Tom Clancy's Elite Squad comes out 27th August 2020 on the App Store and the Google Play Store.

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Following a little leak this week, Ubisoft today formally announced Far Cry 6. The open-world FPS series is headed to the fictional tropical paradise of Yara, which is now in the grip of a dictator (played by Giancarlo Esposito off Breaking Bad) and his son. As the series winds on, I’m increasingly convinced a little family therapy could avoid a whole lot of murder. But not this time, so we’ll be murdering across Yara as a freedom fighter.

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